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Hawthorn’s AFL season of great expectations opened with a pulsating 22-point win over Collingwood at the MCG on Friday night.

Lance Franklin kicked five goals as the Hawks eventually broke clear of last year’s grand finalists to win 20.17 (137) to 16.19 (115).

The match lived up to its billing as the clash of the opening round and it attracted a near-capacity crowd of 78,464.

The last time these teams met, Collingwood beat Hawthorn by three points in a preliminary final result that broke the Hawks’ hearts.

Hawthorn are widely tipped to make this year’s grand final.

The Magpies were left ruing a succession of missed shots on goal when they controlled the first quarter.

Collingwood kicked three goals early in the final term to take a five-point lead, but the Hawks then sealed the game with a five-goal burst.

There were 12 lead changes before the Hawks broke clear.

Defender Grant Birchall and forward Cyril Rioli also starred for Hawthorn, while Collingwood midfielder Scott Pendlebury was arguably best afield and ‘Pies ruckman Darren Jolly was also solid.

A three-goal spree from Hawthorn, capped by a brilliant snap from Brendan Whitecross, gave them a 26-point lead early in the third term.

But Collingwood rallied superbly and only trailled by six points at the last change.

Sam Mitchell first dominated the centre clearances in the third quarter and then Pendlebury was outstanding around the ground to help bring his team back into the game.

The second term belonged to Rioli, who kicked two goals and took an early contender for mark of the year.

He was pivotal as the Hawks recovered from a slow start to lead by 15 points at the main break.

Hawthorn were in trouble during the first term and only Collingwood’s poor goalkicking – they were 0.6 – kept the margin to six points at quarter-time.

Rioli, playing mainly as a small forward, then started the second term with a towering mark over Heath Shaw.
His pass set up Whitecross for a goal to level the scores.

The Magpies then threatened to take control again with two goals, giving them a 13-point lead.

But Rioli kicked a brilliant goal and that sparked a Hawks surge.

They kicked seven of the last 10 goals in the second quarter.

The AFL’s new video review system for scoring decisions passed an early test when a long kick from Hawthorn’s Matthew Suckling found Franklin on the goal line.

Franklin took a juggling mark and the goal umpire correctly queried whether he had crossed the line before controlling the ball.

The mark was disallowed and the behind awarded to Suckling.

Hawks captain Luke Hodge was ruled out on Thursday with a calf muscle injury, while Collingwood counterpart Nick Maxwell was among a long list of front-line Magpies players who were unavailable for the game.

Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson and Magpies counterpart Nathan Buckley, who made his senior coaching debut, separately said it was a game where the momentum ebbed and flowed throughout.

They also noted the unusually high number of scoring shots in the game.

“We were really pleased we were able to gather the momentum in the last part of the game, but it was a real arm wrestle in that regard,” Clarkson said.

“I don’t think either side play footy in that manner – they’re not sides that allow oppositions to kick 16, 18, 20 goals.

“That’s probably just a reflection of … round one of the season, players under fatigue, 130 minutes of footy, a pretty warm night and I’d expect that to settle down a bit over the next few weeks.”

Hawthorn will next play Geelong on Easter Monday and Clarkson thinks Hodge will also miss that game.

Buckley said the game opened up too much and this worked in the Hawks’ favour.

“Probably halfway through the second quarter, the game opened up and changed,” he said.

“If you play an open-field, somewhat uncontested brand of football against a side with the best foot skills in the competition, you’re going to struggle.”

Certainly worthy of a grand final, both teams applied good physical pressure, players like Pendles were able to get some quality ball, but Hawks used it far better and were exceptional around the 50m arc.

Also an argument to be made that just as Malthouse tweaked Clarkson’s Cluster to win a premiership, Hawthorn might well be the new masters at the forward press – enormous tackling pressure forward of centre.

Storm against Collingwood wasn’t going to end well hopefully they continue the live games for the Storm but not on Friday nights against high rating opposition it’s like if the Broncos vs Lions were to be on a Friday in QLD it’s pretty obvious what will happen, or the Swans on a Friday vs one of the Sydney teams.

That’s right, but I doubt it costs the broadcasters anything to use their secondary stations, so once people understand that that’s a permanent fixture, that it will always be on regardless, sports fans interested in an alternative offering will tune in. There will always be someone somewhere not interested in the main offering.

Demetriou said on SEN that last night’s game attracted 1.4 million viewers, higher than any FN game from last season. Not sure what figures he is adding up, either it’s the FTA plus Fox figures, or he has access to the 5 City figures PLUS regional ratings – not sure – having seen any other numbers yet apart from the FTA 5 city numbers.

If the 1.4 million figure is true – and theres no reason for it not to be since its easily disproved when all the ratings are released – then a lot of people watched this on fox or in the regional areas (only 800k on FTA)

Demetriou is being interviewed on ABC right now. He’s pleased with the quality of the last two games.
Talking rules of the game.
He pretty much favours all the new rules of the last few years. He’s happy they didn’t go down the route of making major changes when the ultra-flood was in operation.
Talking about possibility of going from 3+1 to 2+2 (interchange rule), looking at all the scientific evidence, but happy with 3+1 at moment.
160k last 2 games, nearly 200k over first 3 games, plus huge ratings on top of those attendances.
Game last night had higher ratings than any other game last year except for the finals – and that includes being even higher than the ANZAC Day game.
Makes sense to start a week earlier than usual to give players 2 byes during the year.
Currently allowed to start at MCG last weekend of March, but would prefer to start a week earlier, but contract with ACB means MCG needs to be left open just in case Victoria make the Sheffield final – deprives 300K the chance to go to the footy that weekend.

What’s the story with Fox Footy ratings? I’ve just signed up purely to watch the footy, and I reckon they would’ve been getting heaps like me. But damned if I can ever find any kind of ratings figures or subscriptions attributed to AFL. Does anyone know?